Category Archives: In the Garden

My father tended a beautiful garden most summers of his life. Each late winter he started tomato plants from seed indoors and then, come May, transplanted four dozen of the healthiest specimens to the large, heavily composted garden plot that he’d spaded by hand. By August, when the tomatoes were beginning to ripen, pumpkin vines curled around the cornstalks, the melons were growing too large to be shaded anymore by the plants’ lush leaves, and the radishes and lettuces had long since been cleared away to make room for a second planting for fall salads.… Read the rest

Nearly all of us garden in some form or another. After all, isn’t growing our own food one of the tenets of self-reliance? Besides that, it’s fun, fulfilling, and good exercise. Biting into that first sun-ripened tomato, crisp, sweet carrot, or oh-too-juicy melon makes all that planning and work worthwhile instantly. But as we age, some of the work becomes more difficult and we need to find new ways to do the things that make that garden not only possible but more enjoyable, too.… Read the rest

When we moved to our 15 acre homestead, I was thrilled to adopt a mature orchard. Most of the common fruit trees were there, including apples, plums, cherries, and pears. And then there were four fig trees. Suddenly I realized I’d never even tasted a fig … unless you count Fig Newton cookies. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about figs — and I must say I’m as delighted with those trees as I am with the other fruit trees in our orchard.… Read the rest

There is an old maxim about exercise: “The best exercise is the one you are willing to do.”

For us rural folk, one of the exercises we are usually willing to do is gardening, because it is part of the lifestyle of living in the country. How lucky for us, because a growing body of scientific evidence says that gardening, even when compared to such strenuous exercises as swimming and jogging, is one of the best exercises a human being can do.… Read the rest

Once upon a time I bought bedding plants from the nursery to grow my first ever vegetable garden. They grew well and I had a nice harvest. I thought I’d save some money on the following year’s garden, so when those plants set seed I saved seeds to plant the following spring.

The results of my first seed saving efforts were dismal. Some of the seeds molded in their paper packets over the winter. Others failed to germinate in the next spring’s garden, and those that did were spindly and disappointing.… Read the rest

As an utter cheapskate, I’ve spent much of my life finding ways to re-use and stretch everything I own. This definitely extends into the gardening realm.

If you’re like me, you can’t stand throwing away anything that might feed the soil. If you’ve been known to snag bags of leaves from beside the road, or take home coffee grounds from the office for your roses, keep reading, because I’ve got some ideas for you on composting almost everything without building a pile, buying a tumbler, tending worms, or measuring temperatures.… Read the rest

One of the costliest parts of growing your own food is buying garden seeds each spring. These days, a single packet of seeds can cost $5.99 or more. And a whole lot of folks are becoming concerned (and rightly so) with the presence of GMOs in our seed.

Fortunately, saving your own seeds from the garden is very easy and will save you money, too. But a lot of people are confused about just what seeds to plant in order to save seeds at all.… Read the rest

Most of us love carrots, and those of us who know how good parsnips taste love them too. But over and over, I hear people say their rows either didn’t come up or that they never got a decent crop. Carrots and parsnips have gotten a reputation as being hard to grow. Because of that reputation, a lot of folks have just stopped trying to raise them.
These folks that have given up marvel at our lush rows of carrots and parsnips, demanding to know how we even got them to come up at all.… Read the rest

Rhubarb was first cultivated in China in pre-medieval times and eventually was traded along the famous Silk Road to Russia and most of Europe. From there, settlers brought it to the New World, tucked in among other roots and seeds destined for new homesteads. As the frontier expanded westward, pioneers dug up chunks of their plants’ roots, wrapped them in burlap sacking, and brought the plants with them. Back in those days, rhubarb was known as “pie plant.” As sparse as foods were back in the 18th and 19th centuries, rhubarb was much valued and passed from one family member to another, one friend or neighbor to the next.… Read the rest

Cart

In the Store

Thoughts

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself.
— Michel de Montaigne
Please follow and like us:… Read the rest

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved.
— Helen Keller
Please follow and like us:… Read the rest